Birmingham City Council members Valerie Abbott, Johnathan Austin and Jay Roberson

Confucius taught that those who
practice virtue will always have neighbors.

But the city of Birmingham taught a
different sort of, um, wisdom. Those who practice neighborliness will have ... cash.

Loads of it.

Just this week, under the radar and
without a whisper of debate, the Birmingham City Council signed off on sending
$26,765 to various neighborhood associations. There was $15,000 for "Get To
Know Your Neighbor Day" around town, $7,500 for "Fun Day," and $2,000 just so
churches in Pratt City and Oak Ridge would allow their own neighborhood
associations to meet in their buildings.

Mighty neighborly of 'em, don't you
think?

Don't get me wrong. There was
nothing at all extraordinary about this week at city council. It was business
as usual. And that, when you stop to think about it, is extraordinary.

In the past two months the city of
Birmingham, the people of Birmingham, quietly shelled out $122,159 for
neighborhood demands, and nobody said boo. It sent $2,425 for DJs for
neighborhood parties, $6,240 for tables at a banquet, and $6,300
for "facility usage" at churches.

It OKed $73,378 to pay for all those "Get To Know Your Neighbor"
days, even though cops hate those things. They have – in places like Kingston
and Gate City – spiraled into "Have a Go at Your Neighbor Day."

We have it all wrong.

Real neighbors must be more than opportunists,
more than those looking for a city-funded way to pay the DJ.

Neighbors – I swear it is still true
in my Birmingham neighborhood – are those with a common interest in their
community, who smile or nod, who pick up trash when they see it and keep an
eye out for trouble. Neighbors are those who care for their parks and schools.
They are not ... profiteers.

If it takes city money to make a
church open the doors to neighbors, who wants to go in?

If it takes city money to get to
know your neighbor, who wants to know him?

It is time to rethink this.

Birmingham has long been lauded for
its once-innovative system to divide the city into 99 neighborhoods. The
Neighborhood Association started out with great promise, but became a farm club
for petty politics, a source of embarrassment (remember the neighborhood fish
fry/furniture demolition on the patio of the Chattanooga hotel?) and a huge
repository of money.

These days, each of the city's
neighborhoods gets $2,000 a year, though it used to be five times that much. In
those days many neighborhoods stockpiled money, and several still have more
than $250,000 to their credit, to spend as they please.

When neighborhoods want to use it --
for
reunions or fun days, luncheon or office supplies -- they come to the city to collect it. If the council finds the
spending "constitutes a public purpose," it simply writes a check.

In the past, 70 percent of city
funding to neighborhoods had to be spent on capital expenses such as park
improvements. But that rule no longer applies.

And it shows.

In the last two months, only 7
percent of neighborhood spending went toward anything that could remotely be
considered a capital expense. The rest went to Fun Days and Get to Know Your Neighbor
Days, to making you residents feel as much a part of the neighborhood as city
money could buy.

And that's not much.

We are in trouble, in Birmingham,
when neighborliness has become a business.

John Archibald's
column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the Birmingham News, and on
AL.com. Email him at jarchibald@al.com

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